Torres votes early

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, left, signs his name before casting his vote while a Commonwealth Elections Commission staff and administrative officer Kyla Igitol look on in yesterday’s early voting at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe. (Jon Perez)

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres took advantage of early voting and, together with first lady Diann, cast his vote yesterday at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe.

Torres said he and the first lady made the decision to vote early only on Thursday morning—a decision that he said was prompted so could focus on the CNMI’s recovery efforts in the wake of Super Typhoon Yutu last month.

Torres and his wife were among the unofficial tally of 2,102 people that have voted early in the past three days.

Torres said that he’s pleased to see that people are coming out to vote despite the hardship that everyone is experiencing after Yutu’s devastation.

“We continue to see more voters coming in, although the typhoon hit us hard,” he said. “We’ve come back up and have done so much recovery efforts considering what we’ve been through.

“We definitely encourage our people to come out and vote. Just to exercise your right, as much as we want to get back to normal early.”

With his vote now done, Torres said he is ready to go back to helping the recovery efforts. “Diann and I continue to help in the recovery. I want to finish this early vote and take advantage. We want to go back and continue with the recovery efforts.”

Torres said that he is also optimistic of the local Republican Party’s chances in the elections. “I’m very positive with the progress that we’ve done behind the Republican Party and with the partnership that we had with the leadership.”

“The system that we have here, we can see progress. When our gross domestic product came out in 2016 as the highest and again for 2017, we are consistent with our progress and the economy is growing. We want to continue with that.”

He added GOP candidates are respected leaders. “They are not afraid to make the hard decisions. With the decisions we’ve made, we see progress four years later.”

“I’m very hopeful that the community will see the progress that was done and we want to continue with that progress.”

He also congratulated the winners in Guam’s elections and praised its people for making history, like having the first female governor-elect in the person of former lawmaker Lou Leon Guerrero.

“We see the advances made by Guam. Madeleine Bordallo lost to a young senator [Michael San Nicolas], who is energetic. So, I think our people will also see that here so we could continue with the progress that we have.”